


found family

by Reishiin



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 15:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12774285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/pseuds/Reishiin
Summary: “Sorry to ask this so abruptly, Miss Bessho, but are you…”“Am I, what?"“You know. With my brother.”Ema blinks. “Oh, no,” she says with a warm smile. “Coworkers. Really.”





	found family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheAzureFox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAzureFox/gifts).



> Nail painting scene inspired by [this fanart](https://twitter.com/iniyof/status/934701684739080193)

 

 

 

Saturday evening in the Zaizens’ living room with the lights out, the only illumination in the room is from the TV screen showing the live feed of Maiami City’s yearly Friendship Cup. A ticker tape across the bottom announces the news in Link Vrains, and a big bowl of popcorn sits on the coffee table, almost empty. Aoi has fallen asleep on the couch’s arm, curled up on her side, and Ema is dozing against the couch’s back. Akira gets up, careful to disturb the couch as little as he can; covers Aoi with the blanket they keep beside the couch, and Ema with his coat. He turns off the TV and takes the popcorn bowl into the kitchen, where there are dirty dishes in the sink for three.

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

 

 

One Friday evening at the Zaizen household, around the time Akira usually came home, the door had opened to two people, not one. A self-possessed woman followed Akira through the door and then thanked him for holding it, and Aoi had sat up from where she lay on the couch, and blinked up at both of them. The woman seems very familiar somehow, and Aoi thought then that she wants to have poise and makeup skills like that someday.

Her name is Ema Bessho, and she says that she is Akira’s coworker, but with the lilt in her voice that the pretty girls in school use when they’re trading secrets without saying so. Akira disappears into the kitchen to get them all tea, and Ema Bessho asks Aoi about school (‘fine’), whether she duels (“Link Vrains is nice, but I’m really not that into it’), and what she does in free time (‘I don’t really have much’).

Akira returns with three steaming mugs, hides behind one of them as he lets them talk. Later when he heads into the kitchen to get more hot water, Aoi watches to make sure he’s out of earshot and then turns back to Ema. “Sorry to ask this so abruptly, Miss Bessho, but are you…”

“Am I, what?

“You know.” Her hands tighten in her skirt. “With my brother.”

 Ema blinks. “Oh, no,” she says, and this time it’s clear she’s taking it seriously. “Coworkers. Really…”

Two-thirds of a pot of tea and polite conversation later Aoi excuses herself to her room, and watches through the crack in the door as her brother and Ema Bessho’s conversation draws to a close. Akira sees her to the door, then shuts it once the sound of her footsteps has gone, and goes about his nightly routine as if nothing had happened at all.

 

 

 

 

Two days later, reading the SOL Technologies archives on Akira’s lunch break, Ema drops her tablet on the desk and clears her throat. “Hey, Akira, you never said you had a sister.”

“It never came up.”

“You don’t have cute family photos on your desk or computer or in your wallet. Of course it doesn’t.”

“—You don’t have any of those things either,” Akira replies.

“Mm, you’ll have to pay me more if you want my secrets.” She smiles and glances at his computer screen: one monitor open to a development environment, the other to the database records. Hey, Akira. When did you learn to code?”

“Sixteen,” he replies. “I took a class in high school.”

“Thought so.”

“How so?”

“Your code looks like you learned in class. Proper documentation and everything.” Pause. “Since you work for a company like SOL Tech— it’s a good thing.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Several Saturdays later Ema arrives on the Zaizens’ doorstep two to five minutes past noon with her laptop bag and takeout. She says to Aoi,“Your brother’s making me work the weekend, so I said the least he can do is treat me to lunch and let me see you again.”

She and Akira disappear into the kitchen with the bags of food, and Aoi lays the table to the ambient noise of Akira showing Ema where their plates and cutlery are kept.

“What do you do, Ema?” Aoi asks later over soup and vegetables. “I mean, at SOL Technologies.”

“Mm." Ema looks over at Akira, like they’re sharing a secret, and then turns back to Aoi. “I don’t work for SOL Tech, exactly, but let’s call it consulting. About Link Vrains. Is that right?"

Akira nods. "That's about it, yes."

Ema smiles, then turns back to Aoi. "Hey, Aoi, do you know what you want to do? Go into programming, like your brother?”

“—I don’t know yet,” Aoi replies, caught off guard by the change of subject. “But I’m bad at math...”

 

 

 

Later, as they clear the table and put the leftovers in the fridge, Aoi says, “Miss Bessho—“

 “Ema is fine,” Ema replies, Then, more quietly, “I’m not _that_ old…”

“—Ema,” Aoi says, like she’s trying it out. “—Can you teach me to do makeup?”

“You’ve never…?”

Mom died, and Akira surely doesn’t know, and the appearance editor in Link Vrains has premade and lip colors and blushes to mix and match instead of designing by hand. So there is no way to learn, really. “Well, there’s no one around to show me,” Aoi says. “And I’m not in performing clubs or anything ….”

“Sure,” she says, and then makes her excuses to Akira (‘girl time’). She waves Aoi into the bathroom, and then pulls out tubes and cases and brushes from a tiny pouch and compares them. “Hmm. This shade is too dark, but it’ll have to do.”

She shows Aoi the products and how to layer them, brushes on eyeshadow and lipstain with cotton swabs. Her hands are gentle. “There, open your eyes,” Ema says, and spins Aoi around. In the mirror, Blue Angel’s image looks back at her. In the mirror behind her, Ema is smiling. “I think you’d look really cute with your hair in twintails, you know?”

Aoi flushes so hard, she’s glad the color doesn’t show through the layers of foundation. “Maybe next time…”

 

 

 

As Akira walks Ema back downstairs to her bike, he asks, “So what was that about?”

“Mm,” Ema says, like she’s considering whether or not to say. “She asked me to teach her to do makeup.”

“Ah. –-I’m sorry for the trouble,” Akira says. “It’s hard on Aoi. Not having a mother, I mean.”

“It's hard on both of you,” Ema says quietly.

Silence. “It’s harder for a girl.”

“That’s true. Still, she's done very well, don't you think?”

Ema unlocks her bike, dons her helmet and starts the engine. She waves with a smile before she goes, and Akira watches until she turns the corner and disappears from sight.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Walking home from school one day, Aoi hears someone behind her. “Hey, Blue Angel.”

It is the first time Aoi has seen Ema in riding gear, and suddenly everything makes sense: she is not the only one with a secret identity.

_So this is what you really do._

“—You’re Ghost Girl,” she replies, to show that she also understands.

Ema offers her a ride, but Aoi has never been on a motorbike, so Ema takes it to the parking lot and they walk together down the Den City river on Aoi’s usual route home. In the late afternoon, the surface of water is shimmering blue, like the sky.

As they pass under the bridge, Ema says, “The people in Link Vrains are waiting for you, you know.”

There’s no use pretending. “I don’t fight for other people. I fight for myself.”

Ema nods. “And you already have what you want, so there’s no need to, any longer…”

It worries Aoi, a little, to be so easily read by someone she barely knows. But she trusts Ema.

—It is nice to be understood.

“Then I think that’s good, to not be Blue Angel any more,” Ema continues. It’s better than losing because you’re not fully committed.”

On the way home after they have parted ways, Aoi thinks: Ema is right. The outcome of this—whether Blue Angel returns to Link Vrains or not— only depends on what kind of person Zaizen Aoi is.

 

After the duel with the Knight of Hanoi, when Blue Angel sees that Ghost Girl is online, she steels herself and sends a friend request. The person on the other side accepts immediately, and Aoi hits the voice call button.

“My, my, a call from Blue Angel. What an honour.”

“Hey, Ema?“

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saying those things that day, and helping me get back on my feet.”

A pause. “Hey. I only told the truth. However you decided in the end—was all up to you.”

“Then, thank you. For showing me that truth.”

“If you say so. Blue An-gel,” she says, lightly landing on each word in the name.

“—Ema,” Aoi says again.

“Mm?”

“You’re very nice to me. And my brother too. Why are you so nice to us?”

A laugh, like static over the headset. “Why do I… You know, at first, I asked myself that a lot too. The answer, I think, is that I like both of you and want you to be happy.”

“That’s all?”

“It’s not like I’m doing it for nothing,” she says. “I get free food, and nice people to spend time with, and if I make you happy then it’s less likely Akira fires me. Pretty good, don’t you think?”

“It—" Aoi has to stop to find the words. "It is nice. —Thank you…”

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Do you mind if I do my nails here?”

“—Go ahead,” Akira says. Ema pulls out bottles and a small pack of cotton pieces from her handbag, and the sharp scent of nail polish remover fills the room.

It has become a habit: Friday evenings in his windowless office, wired into SOL Tech’s intranet reading the late Dr. Kogami’s records of the Hanoi Project while Ema runs queries against the database, instead of doing… whatever it is people their age do. He had apologized to Ema once for taking up this much of her time, but she just shook her head. “You know how it is. I’m a hacker. If I weren’t here I’d just be doing the exact same thing at home anyway.”

Akira had nodded, even though he does not fully understand. Computers are his job, not his life, and he does not see the same things that people like Dr. Kogami and Ema see in them. But now he has seen Aoi — Blue Angel— in Link Vrains, and met Playmaker and Revolver, and he thinks he might be beginning to understand.

 “You know, Akira—I don’t like this,” Ema is saying, eyes on her hands instead of him as she brushes paint across her nails. “The more I find out about the Hanoi Project, the worse it seems.”

“But you’ll go after it anyway?”

“Of course. Just think how much it’s worth.”

“—For a moment I thought you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart.”

“That, too. But money comes first.” She re-caps the bottle of varnish and shakes her hand out: black and red. “Mm, they could look nicer. But I can’t grow them out since I need to type.”

“They’re very pretty,” Akira says, and Ema’s smile is warm in reply.

 

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

 

 

Saturday evening at the Zaizens’ household, over a dinner of of fish and vegetables, Ema leans across the table in Aoi’s direction and stage-whispers, “What’s this I hear through the Link Network about you and that guy called Yuusaku?”

Aoi flushes. “Nothing?! He visited me in the hospital! That’s ”

Akira looks up from his food for the first time all afternoon. “ _What_ is this about Aoi and this guy?”

“You heard her, Akira,” Ema says, a lilt in her voice as she adds, “No-thing.”

“It _better_ be nothing—“

“He came to visit while I was in the hospital! That’s all!”

 “—It’s seven p.m., the championships are starting,” Ema says, and scrapes her chair as she stands. “You two finish up here, and I’ll get the popcorn.”

“Okay!”

“Hey, don’t change the subject,” Akira calls after Aoi, but she is running to the couch to get the best spot, and pays him no heed.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
